


These Days of Joy and Pain

by skitzofreak



Series: little by little, one travels far [2]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Bespin Cloud City, F/M, Is the Star Wars Vegas, Mission Fic, Rated for swearing, Tumblr Prompt, a long and much more detailed response to the prompt than strictly required, and occasional dark thoughts, because neither I nor these characters have any chill, but it's distant at the moment, there's still that whole war thing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-27
Updated: 2018-02-28
Packaged: 2019-03-24 19:01:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13817466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skitzofreak/pseuds/skitzofreak
Summary: “Well, you seem to have picked up some lucky winnings,” he smiled and glanced down at her pockets. “So I think we can afford it.”"Alright then," she returned the smile (Cassian felt the tension in his back easing, even now, he still couldn’t quite get over the way Jyn’s whole face transformed when she did that), and stood back up again, reaching for his hand. “Let’s go and see.”--They say that happens in Bespin, stays in Bespin...with a few important distinctions. (A tumblr request: Jyn and Cassian and an impulsive decision in a city known for impulsive decisions.)





	1. Silver Lining Casino: Infiltration

**Author's Note:**

  * For [runakvaed (Nordbo)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nordbo/gifts).



> "These days have brought me both a joy and a pain that I never thought to know. Joy to see you and be with you; but pain, because the fears and doubts of the world. I would not there were these cares now, that I may lose so soon what I have found."  
> – Faramir to Eowyn, _The Return of The King_ , JRR Tolkien

“Camera, second column on your left, three meters high,” Cassian said quietly into his cocktail, one arm folded casually over the balcony railing of the casino’s upper level. The booth table where he sat was small and far away from the tastefully decorated bar on this level, but it was perfectly positioned to oversee the floor below him – and to pick out all the security measures in place.

“Marked,” Jyn replied, turning her head to the right as if she was admiring the delicately-blown glass statue full of rolling blue smoke. The motion conveniently kept her face out of the camera’s view. From his vantage point, Cassian watched her weave her way into a crowd of riotous Zabrak women, her bright green dress looking muted against the brilliant colors of the bachelorette party. Or what he assumed was a bachelorette party, given that one of the women had a “Bride” crown perched a little awkwardly on her horns and the lot of them were roaring drunk.

“Sorry,” Jyn said politely when one of them turned to look at her. “My ex just walked in, and I’m trying to, you know,” she mimed ducking her head low, and immediately all six of the Zabrak drew into a little circle around her.

“Sweetie, you stick with us,” the bride threw her black and yellow arm over Jyn’s shoulders and slurred loudly in Jyn’s (and Cassian’s) ear. “You stay and have fun with us!” The other women cheered loudly, and happily walked Jyn right on past the next two cameras. Their taller stature easily obscured her face, and when Jyn finally smiled and thanked them and slipped out of their little group (which continued on their merry way with shouted promises to keep in touch and zero chance of remembering her face when they sobered up), she paused and glanced up at his balcony with a little smile.

“Nicely done,” Cassian murmured, taking another sip as she slipped smoothly out of the crowd and walked around a roulette table with her back to the facial scanner array perched above the slot machines.

“They were so sauced they would have adopted me if I asked,” Jyn shrugged just enough that he could see her bare shoulders roll. Cassian had picked the light summer dress for her at her own insistence _(you’re better at this clothes shite, and don’t look at me like that, it’s a compliment)_ , and he had picked this one largely for practical reasons. The bared shoulders had been entirely off his radar, focused as he was on the professional advantages of the dress – right up until she walked out of their cabin on the ship with her hair pinned up and some of Leia’s “warpaint” smudging her eyes and pinking her cheeks. The dress had long, loose sleeves to hide her scarred arms and at least one knife, but it left her shoulders and collarbone bare. All that skin – more than Jyn ever showed outside of their room, unless blood and bacta were involved – had caught his attention in a very unprofessional way, and now he had to work very hard to keep his mind wholly devoted to the objectives at hand.

Jyn, who had smiled knowingly at him on their ship and asked his help latching the back of the dress, was not being particularly helpful with that. “Almost in position,” she said, deliberately glancing up at him one more time over her shoulder. (Aside from his more idiotic hang-ups, the cut of the dress also kept making him ridiculously nervous, imagining someone walking up and putting a blade against her vulnerable skin. Damn it, next time Cassian would definitely pay more attention to what he was giving her. He’d sleep better at night.)

“Once you’re there, I’ll give you the go ahead to begin,” he promised her, taking another sip of his cocktail and trying not to grimace at the sour taste of the booze hitting the neutralizer patch on the roof of his mouth. The patch killed the actual alcohol, rending it a harmless fruit juice instead, but it made the drink taste like shit in the process. But to sit in a casino bar along the famous Bespin Plume and _not_ drink would have been extremely conspicuous, so he sipped slowly and hoped that they would have time to grab some food before they left, to wash out the taste in his mouth. “Disguised security guard, your right, purple coat and cravat. Probably a button camera on his lapel.”

“Marked,” Jyn turned gracefully on her heel to put her back to the discreet guard. “What the hells is a _cravat_?”

“Fluffy tie. You’re almost to the access point. Three meters to your right.”

“I still think we should just break into this guy’s office,” Jyn waved off a Moogan who gestured to an empty seat next to him at the roulette table with a decidedly suggestive smile. “The security on his office can’t be less complicated than this. And we wouldn’t have to be dressed up for it.”

“You don’t like the dress?” Cassian asked, genuinely curious. In the six months they had been working together, he had never seen her in anything other than practical gear.

“If I say no, will it hurt your feelings?”

Cassian chuckled into his drink. “I mostly picked it because you wanted one with big pockets,” he confessed. “But, ah, it looks nice on you, too,” he rushed to add, realizing how callous that sounded.

“Big pockets,” she said firmly. “Perfect.”

“Raiding the brand new Baron Administrator’s office would be too aggressive,” Cassian cleared his throat and tried to push his thoughts back on track. “If we were caught, it would potentially sour any relations between him and our people before we had a chance to be…friendly.”

“You mean, before we had the chance to sweet talk him into supporting us instead of our...business rivals.” Her voice growled a little over the euphemism, and Cassian couldn’t help but agree. There was something hateful about referring to the Empire as a _business rival_ , even when it was only a code term to prevent eavesdroppers from understanding them.

“We can’t act without at least knowing who he is and where his interests lie,” Cassian shook his head, watching her sidle up to the little access panel in the wall near a table projecting a far off animal race of some kind. A crowd of shouting gamblers elbowed and hip checked each other around the projection, throwing credit chips on the table and occasionally turning to bellow in each other’s faces about their chosen racer. Cassian saw Jyn scrutinizing a nearby gambler carelessly jamming credit vouchers into his suit pockets with a dangerous glint in her eye. “The Baron's  _interests_ seem to be running a wealthy mining city and a profitable tourist district,” Jyn snorted, pretending to sneeze when someone glanced in her direction, and drifted a little closer to the gambler.

“Stay on target,” Cassian warned, though he couldn’t quite keep his smile from showing in his voice.

“We could always use some budget padding,” she shot back, but drifted away again and kept her sticky hands in her own pockets. She stepped close to the access panel and looking around casually, as if she were waiting for a friend. “Ready when you are.”

“Stand by.” Another man in a purple-lined half-cloak swept past Jyn and paused to speak to the disguised guard that Cassian had already marked for her. Probably a floor manager, Cassian decided, watching the man in the cape chat comfortably with the guard even as his eyes roamed over the casino crowd. He was probably catching up on any major parties or high-end gamblers, and making sure his guard was staying on top of things. Unfortunately, his face was turned towards Jyn, preventing her from reaching back to the access panel. And the longer the man stood there, the more awkward Jyn looked just hanging around by the wall. Cassian glowered over the rim of his glass and willed the meticulous floor manager to finish up his business and move along.

He could just see Jyn's hand as she brushed it over the front of her dress, where he knew her crystal pendant was tucked just below the hollow of her throat. “Problem?”

“Potentially. You might have to move away and then circle back.”

She hummed low in his ear (it was only slightly distracting – Cassian took a big gulp of the sour cocktail to shake himself out of it), and then in a sweet voice she suddenly turned towards someone just out of Cassian’s line of sight behind a nearby pillar, “This is lovely, do you know what it is?”

“Hm? Oh, why, yes, of course. It’s called a cloud trap,” a surprised yet pleased older Human male answered her, and Cassian could just make out another glass statue filled with bubbling purple smoke between Jyn and her new mark. “They make them all along the Plume, if you’ve a mind to see them, my dear.”

“I’d heard that,” Jyn nodded thoughtfully. “The glassworkers create them right out along the sides of the streets like a show, and then you can buy the statue…the cloud trap, I mean.”

Behind her, the floor manager stood with his arms crossed and a faint smile on his face, nodding as the guard pointed at the racing table near Jyn. How long did a man need to get a report on his floor? Perhaps he was bored tonight, just their rotten luck.

“Yes, although you must be careful to only get near the artists on the Plume itself, dear,” the old man stepped a little closer to her, and Cassian tensed, watching the stranger's hands. But he seemed only interested in the statue itself, shaking his head and pointing up at the art. “See the smoke? It’s actually a highly pressurized gas, and if handled improperly by an untrained charlatan, can be terribly dangerous. Avoid the swindlers making cheap copies down in the lower levels of the city, my dear. Very dangerous,” the old man shook his head reproachfully, and Jyn smiled blandly and thanked him. She drifted back towards the access panel, looking dreamily up at the purple cloud trap as if it was all she was thinking about. Her back brushed lightly against one of the gamblers, and she waved vaguely over her shoulder as he apologized to her.

“Clear?” she asked under her breath, her hands back in her dress pockets.

The floor manager clapped his guard on the shoulder, swirled his half-cape a touch more dramatically than necessary, and strode off into the crowds and out of Cassian’s sight. “Clear,” he told her. “And I saw that.”

“He won’t even notice,” Jyn promised, patting her pocket where at least some of the gambler’s credit vouchers no doubt now sat. “We need to replace the comm panel in our ship soon anyway, or we might be down a radio before we ever get home. I’m on the clock,” she added in a suddenly brisk tone, and through the earpiece he heard the faint beep of her slicing device connecting to the access panel. “Ten minutes.”

“Clear,” Cassian reassured her, checking that no one was looking in her direction. He pretended to sip at his drink again and shifted in his seat to get a better scan of the floor. Ten minutes, and then the Alliance would finally know the name of the mysterious new Baron Administrator of Bespin City and (hopefully) have some idea of how to approach him. “We just need his name and finances. That will be enough to work with.”

“And a quick check for porn,” she added casually, and Cassian almost choked on his drink. “Know a man’s kinks and you know his weaknesses.” She smoothed a stray piece of dark hair off her bare shoulder and smirked up at the balcony, tucking it deftly back into her neat twist. Cassian’s eyes dropped to the curve of her neck for a brief moment before he reminded himself that this was literally a war, and they could be in a great deal of danger, even if there was no Imperial presence on Bespin. No _known_ presence, at least.

 _Unfair_ he thought at her, but knew better than to say aloud. She had enough ammunition against him.

“Nine minutes. Please don’t be an Imp scab,” Jyn muttered in his ear, just loud enough for the earpiece to register. Cassian closed his eyes and silently added his prayer to hers.

The floor manager swept into the other side of Cassian’s booth and flung on arm over the balcony railing, mimicking Cassian’s pose.

“Good evening, Mister Eduardo Strax,” he said in a smooth voice well-practiced at charm, his purple-lined half-cape spreading artfully across the back of the booth where he lounged nonchalantly. “How are my Alliance friends enjoying my city?”

In Cassian’s head, a dozen different sequences of events played out in rapid fire – he threw the last few sips of his cocktail into the man’s dark face and launched himself over the railing, he kicked the heavy booth table over and darted for the emergency stairwell just behind him, he threw a loud fit and pretended to be an angry drunk reacting to an accusation, he pulled the tiny plastic blaster from his sock and fired –

“Standing by,” Jyn breathed in his ear, her voice tense, and over the floor manager’s shoulder, he could see her turning to look up at the balcony, her hands still hidden in her pockets. Whatever he did, Jyn would follow his lead, and share his fate, whatever it was. Cassian’s mind raced for another moment, then he took a deep breath and let it out.

“Good evening, Baron Administrator,” he replied coolly, taking a gamble of his own. “I can’t speak for the gaming tables, but your bar at least is well stocked.” He raised his glass and took a sip, praying that the other man couldn’t see his pulse racing in his throat.

His unexpected guest made a face. “ _Baron Administrator_ ,” he mused. “I admit, I liked the title when I first got here, but after awhile it gets a bit unwieldy.”

“You prefer something else?” Cassian sipped the drink again, and resolutely kept his eyes fixed on the other man’s face and not straying to Jyn again. Cassian was blown, but she might yet be safe.

“Well, I’ve had more than a few names in my time,” the man smiled wide, and winked. He made a lazy gesture at the distant bartender, who waved back and handed an attendant a bubbling pink glass with a delicate glass swirl stick floating in it. “But I get the feeling we have that in common.”

“Perhaps,” Cassian forced his body to stay leaning back and relaxed as possible, his empty hand uncurled on the railing, his legs outstretched slightly under the table. The attendant handed the man in the half cape the pink drink and then backed away, eyeing Cassian suspiciously. Bodyguard, Cassian decided, blaster in her left pocket, some sort of stun weapon on her belt. She moved like Jyn, too, trained to combat. Wonderful. The bodyguard moved back to the bar, but kept them both in sight, not bothering to pretend otherwise.

“She’s a sweetheart, once you get to know her,” the Cloud City administrator said. “Unless, of course, you actually go through with your plans here, spy,” his voice suddenly turned harsh and accusing, and Cassian’s heart stuttered. “In which case, she’ll kill you.”

Cassian’s chest ached, but he forced his muscles to stay loose and his jaw relaxed, watching the other man over the rim of his glass as detached as if this were just another street show on the Plume. In his ear, Jyn drew in a long, slow breathe, and somehow the sound soothed his own hackles and made his lungs feel less choked.

A long, tense second passed, and then abruptly the man in the half-cape threw back his head and laughed. “Not even a twitch. You are a pretty cool customer, aren’t you?”

Cassian tilted his glass in a small salute, but didn’t trust himself to speak.

The other man took a gulp of his pink drink and bowed as elaborately as possible from a sitting position. “Lando Calrissian, at your service,” he leaned back and swept Cassian with a friendly, assessing look. “Let me guess. Your people are just dying to congratulate me on my newfound position of respectability and would love to extend a warm hand in friendship,” his grin suddenly had a little too much teeth in it to be completely welcoming, “so long as I extend my hand right back.”

 “Two minutes,” Jyn crackled suddenly in his earpiece, and Cassian realized with a start that she was still down there, slicing into the Bespin mainframe to access Calrissian’s personal files. For a moment he debated calling her off – they were compromised, and it might be because Calrissian knew someone was in his mainframe. If Jyn got into his files while he was sitting here with Cassian, and Calrissian _knew_ about it, that would be no less aggressive than raiding his office.

On the other hand, Jyn reported no threats to herself, and from what he could see glancing around, no one was near her. She was still unknown (if he was lucky), and she was one of the best slicers he’d ever seen. There was still a chance to salvage this, and if she could feed him some useful intel while he spoke to their mark…

“You are a business man, are you not?” Cassian tilted his head. “Are you not open to business propositions?”

“Oh, I’m open to a lot of things,” Calrissian waved his drink indolently, and Cassian didn’t miss the appreciative way the Baron’s eyes flicked down his fitted suit and back up again with a sly grin. “But I like to know what’s on offer before I make any decisions.”

Cassian regarded him in the shadows of the bar, taking in the deliberate mirror of his own posture (a tactic to subconsciously put a conversational partner at ease), the well-made half-cape (showcasing the high quality materials and expensive cut of his clothing) worn at a careful disarray (to indicate that while he was rich, he wasn’t stuck up about it), and of course, the inviting smile.

He also noted the openly suspicious bodyguard tapping at her poorly hidden blaster impatiently, the sudden increase of people on the casino floor who seemed more interested in wandering around rather than playing any games, and thin line of tension running through Calrissian’s shoulders, invisible unless an experienced eye knew where to look.

“Have you had many offers already?” Cassian probed carefully. It was unlikely the Empire had already bought Calrissian; the Baron’s guards would have converged on him already if he were under pressure to deliver the rebel to the Imperials. All the same, it didn’t hurt to check.

“Well, I’ve only been here a little while. Not really time for the neighbors to come a-calling.”

“Happy to be the first,” Cassian told him honestly. “And yes, Baron, allow us to offer you congratulations.” He gestured around the casino with his mostly empty glass. “You seem to have things well in hand.”

“I’m in,” Jyn told him, her voice sounding a little distracted. Probably because she was now rifling through all of Lando Calrissian’s financial and personal files while trying not to look conspicuous on the casino floor.

“Oh, I manage,” Calrissian waved off his polite compliment with a careless flip of his hand. “I found it in pretty good condition, for the most part. Good mines. Updated equipment. Only had to make a few adjustments here and there, really.”

“Slaves,” Jyn said in a voice that was suddenly a little less edged. “There were indentured workers down in the mines, and he cancelled all their contracts and made them full-time employees instead. Looks like it cut into his profits, but he had it done within the first week.”

That was promising information. Cassian allowed himself a small smile, and waved his empty glass at the bartender in a gesture not unlike Calrissian’s own a moment ago. He saw the recognition in the Baron’s eyes and his smile grew. _Yes, we are alike_ , he thought, _at least so far, in the ways that matter_.

Calrissian’s glowering bodyguard brought over a replacement drink for Cassian, eyeballing him sternly as she thunked it down in front of him. On her dark wrist, Cassian caught the faint impression of a tattooed number that was in the process of being lasered off, scabbed over and raw – a slave marker, most likely. He checked the woman’s face and saw total devotion when she glanced at her boss, which confirmed his suspicions. “Thank you,” he told her politely, and then nodded to her retreating back as she returned to the bar. “Very loyal bodyguard,” he told Calrissian. “A nice side effect of your 'adjustments,' I take it.”

Calrissian’s face turned serious for the barest moment, a shadow passing darkly over his eyes and then evaporating back into pleasant charm. “Every action has consequences, friend,” he said easily, throwing back another gulp of his own drink. “My policy is to make as few waves as possible, and manage the ripples as best I can.”

That was _not_ promising. “And every non-action has consequence, too,” Cassian agreed. “The galaxy so rarely allows us to ignore it.”

“Oh, I’m hardly ignoring the galaxy, Mister Strax. I’m just…prioritizing the interests of my people.”

 _And covering your ass_ , Cassian mentally added, the sour taste of his drink amplified by the sour cast of his thoughts. “I thought you liked to know what was on offer before you made any decisions.”

"Some decisions are easier to make than others." For all his relaxed charm, Cassian could hear the finality in Calrissian’s voice. They were too late, the Baron had already decided to stay neutral – or perhaps too early, coming to him when he still felt unstable in his new position and didn’t want to rock the ship too much yet. This was exactly why he had wanted to scout through the files first, to avoid pushing the man too hard. His stomach sank as he realized that however well he charmed Calrissian, they would get nothing on this trip from him. Instinctively, he glanced over the Baron’s shoulder to the floor below, checking Jyn’s position.

She was gone. Cassian raised his glass to his mouth to hide his frown and swept a casual glance along the upper balcony across from them. Nothing.

Calrissian nodded to Cassian’s drink, drawing his attention back. “Is it not to your liking?”

Right. Calrissian knew how to read microexpressions too. Cassian needed to get his head on straight before he blew even their tenuous chances. “Well enough.”

“Look, Mister Strax,” Calrissian set his drink down and leaned forward, propping his chin on one elegantly curled hand. “I admit that I’m not entirely adverse to working with your people. I’ve, hah, had some _dealings_ with them before.” He chuckled softly to himself, his eyes briefly going out of focus as he reminisced. Cassian made a note to research Intel’s files on Lando Calrissian the moment he returned to base. “But I’m in a tricky position here. I’ve got mouths to feed, and guests to please.” He tilted his head towards the casino floor without breaking eye contact.

“And assets to protect,” Cassian said dryly.

Lando Calrissian smiled.

“I’ll tell you what, Mister Strax,” he put a faint emphasis on the name, clearly marking it as a fake. “I do like you, and I like your people. Let’s make a bargain. You spend a little time in my city, enjoy the sights, maybe walk down the Plume, take a day off. My people will make sure you get home safely.”

“And in return?” Cassian asked carefully. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a flash of green, just behind the Baron’s bodyguard, and a small hard knot in his stomach unclenched. _There you are_. The bodyguard was still focused entirely on Cassian, and didn’t seem to have noticed that she had acquired a shadow of her own. “What will you be doing, as I play tourist?”

Calrissian’s grin somehow grew wider. “I will be considering the values of friendship, Mister Strax.”

They’d lost him. There was no way Calrissian was going to throw in with the Alliance, not now, not when his pockets were so full, his position so new, and the Empire so far away and apparently uninterested. However, the fact that he wasn’t throwing Cassian out – and that he had freed slaves even at his own cost – was a good sign. A foothold, if nothing more.

“I hope you take me up on that offer,” Calrissian rose to his feet and casually swung his half-cape back over his shoulder. “Enjoy your evening, friend. Oh, and Mister Strax,” he paused, raised an eyebrow, and looked Cassian right in the eye. “Try the ice cream. It really is the best in the galaxy.”

That was the trouble with con-men and scoundrels, Cassian sighed resignedly as the man swept away, his bodyguard falling into step as he passed. They always had to play games, just to prove they were clever.

Jyn slid into the booth in Calrissian’s empty seat. “Bug out?” she asked quietly.

“No,” Cassian pushed the cocktail away and discreetly peeled the alcohol-neutralizer patch from the roof of his mouth, folding it into his napkin and pushing it under the glass. “If we run off, he’s going to notice. It will sour any chance of making second contact. And...” he trailed off thoughtfully. _I hope you take me up on that offer_. "I might have missed something," he mused quietly, more to himself than her.

Jyn’s brow wrinkled. “So we play tourist? See the sights?”

“Well, you seem to have picked up some lucky winnings,” he smiled and glanced down at her pockets. “So I think we can afford it.”

"Alright then," she returned the smile (Cassian felt the tension in his back easing, even now, he still couldn’t quite get over the way Jyn’s whole face transformed when she did that), and stood back up again, reaching for his hand. “Let’s go and see.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This happens about a year post-Scarif. I can’t pin down when Lando took over Bespin, so I’m going with “really recently.” The Alliance knows a new Human male is calling the shots on this wealthy city, but not anything else about him. Making him an ally would be advantageous for them, hence this mission.
> 
> Cassian’s fake ID, Eduardo Strax, is the same one I used in “A Light To You (In Dark Places),” so I decided to throw this story into that timeline. This story happens roughly 6 months after that one.
> 
> Using a casino data access point to learn about a mark is a plot point I stole straight out of Mass Effect 3: Citadel DLC. (And the name of that mission is the inspiration for the title of this chapter.) 
> 
> That thing where Lando and Cassian copy each other’s body posture to put him at ease? That’s a tactic called [‘mirroring,’](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirroring_\(psychology\)) and it’s used in psychology to appeal to a [the Human desire to understand what the other person is thinking or feeling](http://psychologia.co/mirroring-body-language/). Psychologists, therapists, ambassadors, and salesmen are often trained to do this to maximize the comfort and attention of the person they are talking to. It’s also a technique used by experienced [con-men and hustlers.](https://www.rd.com/advice/relationships/con-artists-win-trust/)
> 
> Lando apparently ran a few missions with Alliance forces as a freelancer before he became Baron Administrator on Cloud City. Wonder why he didn't hang around?
> 
> “Cloud traps” are just glass sculptures full of colored smoke (made from a pressurized gas). I don’t know if anything like that really exists, but it sounds cool in my head anyway. In this story, the statues have little fans hidden inside that make the smoke boil around constantly, too.
> 
> Part 2 is where I actually fulfill the prompt, I promise (I'm sorry, did you say "Jyn and Cassian have a date in space!Vegas on a whim, but first they need 5000 words of setup?" Because that's what I heard.)


	2. Stratus Plaza: Reconnaissance and Diplomatic Overtures

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here's the actual prompt! I got there eventually!

Jyn’s hand was tight in his, her bare shoulder brushing against his arm as she pressed in close to avoid the passing Mimbanite shoving in the opposite direction. Cassian tugged her a little closer to the middle of the wide pedestrian path, his mouth quirking into an unbidden smile as she followed him reluctantly. The middle of the path was louder, brighter, and farther from the exits to the adjacent streets, so Cassian fully understood why she kept drifting back towards the shadowy edges. But Cassian had already marked at least two trackers - a tall Human and a stocky Krish, wearing grey coats with purple lining and following at a discreet but steady distance. Calrissian’s people keeping track of his guests. It would be rude to shake them, and not particularly useful, either.

A street artist was setting up a new show just ahead of them, the tall pink-skinned Mikkian standing on a raised platform and waving her slender arms over her many purple-dyed lekku. “To catch a ship within a bottle is a beautiful art,” she called over the babble of the crowd, and many of the pedestrians around them slowed and began to cluster by her. Jyn tensed as they neared the knot of people and glanced up at him. “But to catch a _storm_ in a bottle,” the Mikkian shouted with a wild laugh and brandished her red-hot glassblower’s pipe, “is true artistry!” Black smoke began to billow up from three nozzles at her feet, the sound of booming drums and crashing cymbals shook the pathway beneath their feet, and the Mikkian began to dance, sweeping long trails of molten glass through the air around her body.

More people pressed in around them, Jyn snarled reflexively as someone bumped into her bare shoulder, and Cassian started looking for the quickest path out. Jyn suddenly jerked her hand out of his grip, but before he could panic, she pushed herself up under his arm and wrapped her own around his waist. _Ah,_ he thought hazily, that was a good call, the best way to make sure no one forced their way between them. The Mikkian twirled, apparently guiding the black smoke into the cooling tubes of glass she had spun (a clever illusion, but Cassian could see her assistant at the base of the platform piping the correct pressurized gas into the sculpture while the black smoke simply dissipated into the air). The crowd cooed and clapped as the performer dropped little flashing white lights into the smoke-filled glass before sealing it shut, making it appear as if she were trapping a thunderstorm in her creation.

Cassian leaned a little to the side and pushed Jyn towards the nearest opening. “Almost out,” he said against her temple, then politely but firmly shoved a gawping Human out of the way.

“This place is insane,” Jyn snapped curtly as they cleared the knot and moved on again, down the long, busy walk of the Plume. Cassian ran his hand up and down her arm in agreement, though he didn’t try to shout back at her over the noise. Bespin was a prosperous mining planet, and most of the floating city was devoted to that industry. But the Plume was known throughout the galaxy in equal parts for its unashamed hedonism and it’s beautiful aesthetic. The brilliant colored lights of each casino obscured the stars overhead, and reflected on the endless ocean of clouds underneath the city. The Silver Lining casino shone like a queen’s crown, wrought in shimmering chrome. The famous Noctilucent was built of pure white materials and had over a dozen glassblowers and smoke catchers dancing in synchronized patterns along the upper external balconies at regular intervals throughout the night. The Morning Glory paid even more tribute to the local artistic custom, and was built like a crashing wave, covered over in the fragile glass sculptures of curling waves, sea creatures, and ocean plants, all roiling with the little storms of colored smokes trapped inside. Cassian found himself eyeing the carefully designed plethora of glass and smoke and wondering how they kept it maintained. Droids, he decided. It had to be carefully calibrated droids, maybe even the little flying drones for the tight spaces high up.

Nearer the north side of the Plume (or what was _currently_ north – Cassian had no idea if the city routinely spun around to change it’s orientation or not), the pathways widened out into plazas, and the buildings began to space out to their own platforms, leaving gaps that looked down into the lower levels of the city. The spaceport was nearby, too, and from here they could see the glittering ships landing and ascending again in intricate patterns. The seemingly random flight patterns were all centered around the a twisting spire of blue glass and white lights, a multi-tiered control tower devoted to managing the traffic. It was beautiful, cleverly engineered, and utterly indefensible.

Jyn followed his eyeline and sighed. “The Empire wouldn’t even need a Star Destroyer,” she said, uncannily echoing his thoughts.

“A squadron of TIE fighters could destroy this place,” Cassian agreed, a touch sadly. No wonder Calrissian was so reluctant to risk their ire.

More music rang out suddenly from a little open-air restaurant nearby, a lighter tune than the Mikkian’s stormy drums, and Jyn paused, turning towards the musicians with a distracted expression. Cassian obligingly stopped with her, and watched the tilt of her head as she listened. His eyes drifted down to her throat, where her kyber crystal had pulled loose from the neckline of her dress (which was much lower than anticipated, honestly, what had he been _thinking_ when he gave her this?) The thin metal chain Bodhi had given her a month ago (she’d been complaining that her cord kept fraying) sat loose against her bare collarbone, and Cassian found his mind wandering away from the bright lights and colorful artworks of the city.

She turned abruptly under his arm to look at him, and Cassian jumped at the unexpected movement, snapping his eyes up to hers. She raised an eyebrow slowly, and Cassian cleared his throat and willed himself not to flush. “Your necklace,” he tried to explain lamely, feeling idiotic and rude. _Force,_ he was still technically on an operation for the Alliance, and yet here he was, stumbling around staring at his – at Jyn – like a teenager with a _crush_ –

The lights from the restaurant caught in her eyes and cast blue and green highlights around the edges of her hair and face. Deftly, Jyn tucked the crystal away again, but her hands moved slower than strictly necessary as she settled it in place, and her smile was playful as she watched him watching her. She looked for a moment like one of the delicate blown glass sculptures on The Morning Glory’s elaborate ocean wave, shining and unreal. Except Cassian knew that those loose sleeves covered hard muscles and thick scars, and he had once seen her kill a Troxan gangster by jamming her fingers deep into his gills and tearing out his trachea with her bare hand. (The dichotomy of Jyn Erso never failed to fascinate him.)

“Hey,” she said, her grin turning a little wry as she caught his stare. “You should take me to dinner.”

That sounded reasonable, of course, but something in the way she said it seemed…strange. Cassian nodded slowly, then took the risk to ask. “Any particular reason?”

“Aside from hunger?” She rolled her eyes, and then tugged on his belt, her arm still around him. “Isn’t that what people do on a date?”

She was still smiling, but there was a hint of uncertainty in her eyes now, and she stumbled slightly over the word _date_. It occurred to Cassian that for all he had been her partner for six months (not including the insane month before that when they had careened around the galaxy together in a frantic attempt to destroy the Death Star before it destroyed everything else), and for all that he had been…well, more than just her _professional_ partner for at least four of those months…they had never dated. At least, not the way people dated in holos, or in the cultural reports he read every time he came to a new planet. Not the way some of his colleagues had, those who came to the Alliance as adults with stories of lives before the war.

“Dinner,” he said carefully, as if he were testing the word. Behind her, the band at the restaurant started a new set, and a concierge caught Cassian’s eye and smiled broadly, gesturing towards the open-air tables with a clear view of the white and blue traffic control spire. Several paces away, Calrissian’s two trackers lounged against a fountain made of glass birds, filled with yellow smoke and soaring on translucent wings into a pink and orange “cloud.” The Human caught him looking and waved lazily. 

Jyn smirked as he looked back at her. “They like that fountain,” she said dryly. “Practically ran to it when we came to this plaza.”

“It has a good view of the area,” he murmured absently, and then let his arm drop from around her, stepping away until he could wind his fingers through her hand again. She shivered slightly at the absence of his warmth, and for some reason, Cassian found himself smiling. “Alright,” he said softly. “A date.”

The restaurant was busy, but somehow a table seemed to be waiting the moment they walked up. Jyn shot a glance back at their trackers and muttered, “The Krish is using a comm link.” Apparently Calrissian was making sure that they had a very pleasant visit. A part of Cassian filed that away under “Deeply Suspicious,” but there was no good reason the man wouldn’t be interested in their comfort and several excellent reasons he would want to foster good feelings between the Alliance and his city. So Cassian took the table without comment and let Jyn order a truly massive amount of ridiculously expensive food.

“Exactly how much did the gambler have in his pockets?” He raised an eyebrow at some of the more ornate dishes, wondering why anyone would bother to build a small replica bantha out of four kinds of cheeses.

“He was on a high stroke,” Jyn smirked at him, and tossed a handful of gilded credit chips on the table. Cassian whistled softly – one of those chips was more than enough for anything they could get at this restaurant. “So that’s the busted comm panel sorted.”

“I used to work within my budget,” Cassian told her, snagging a piece of seasoned fish from her plate. “Only padded it out when I really had no choice.”

“Boring,” Jyn commented shortly, and stole a sip of his drink, some kind of minty juice that worked wonders in cleaning out the lingering sourness of his cocktail.

“There’s an art to it, you know.”

“Boring,” she repeated firmly. “They’re talking to a vendor,” she informed him in a lower voice, her eyes flicking over his shoulder towards their trackers. “Food stand of some kind.”

“Lip read?”

“Angle’s bad.”

Cassian shrugged. “It’s in Calrissian’s best interests that we stay safe.”

“And in our best interests that he thinks we care about his city,” she nodded, not needing to ask for clarification. (It was a silly thing, to make his chest warm and his heart swell, but no one he’d ever worked with had been this easy to communicate with, this in-tune with his own assessments. He still wasn’t over it, he would probably _never_ be over it.) “Who makes a bantha sculpture out of cheese?” She demanded, poking it suspiciously with her fork. “Where does that idea even come from?”

“Artists,” he murmured, and before his better sense could kick in, he shifted his leg under the table and hooked his ankle behind hers. Jyn froze, then peered up at him through her eyelashes, searching his face. Clearly, she thought he was trying to signal her to some danger, because her fingers shifted on her knife from a cutting hold to a stabbing one.  Cassian smirked at her. “Paranoid.”

She squinted at him, her knife hand dropping back to the table. “What are you doing then?”

There was absolutely no need for his heart to be racing this fast. “I thought this was what people did,” he said lightly around the tightness in his throat, “on dates.”

She stared at him blankly, and his throat felt even tighter, he was really pushing the line with this nonsense – and then she laughed. It was a short, quiet sound, cut off as soon as begun, but it hit him in the chest like a kick and made his heart stutter. It helped, too, that her face was suddenly significantly pinker than before, and she made no attempt to pull her foot away from his. “Romantic sap,” she grumbled good naturedly at him, and shoved a pile of breadsticks toward him. “You’ll like those,” she said, still smiling but not quite meeting his eyes. “They taste like that spice you use in stew.”

Cassian took one (she was right, they were very good breadsticks), and focused on eating for a few minutes, giving them both time to compose themselves.

When they had finished (it pained Cassian how much food remained on the table, how much the restaurant would probably just throw away, and from the look on her face, Jyn felt the same), Jyn tossed one of the gilded credit chits at the waiter and told him to keep the remaining balance as a tip. The man beamed at them and begged them to come back any time, ask for him personally and he would make sure they were taken care of - “How much was on that chit?” Cassian demanded under his breath again, but Jyn shrugged and led the way out as the waiter waved happily after them.

“Just making sure Calrission knows we appreciate his city,” she commented, sweeping her scan to the right, so Cassian kept his to the left. The upper levels looked clear, too, all these lights made for poor sniper perches. “I’ll be generous when we swing by the shipyard for the comm panel tomorrow, too. That should really get us in his good graces.”

“Why?” Cassian reached for her hand again as they reentered the crowds, carefully concealing how much he enjoyed the feel of her calloused fingers curled around his (and secretly amused at himself for even bothering with the act, considering that Jyn had been sharing his bed for several months at this point and _holding her hand_ was hardly the most physically intimate thing they had done. And yet. And yet.)

“I found his porn,” she said glibly, and Cassian’s thought briefly skid to a halt.

“What?”

She threw him a sidelong look from the corner of her eye. “When I was rummaging around in his finances. Oh, speaking of, I downloaded everything from his personal files and the city’s records. Brief scan says that he’s not cooking the books, but we’ll have to turn it over to the data crunchers. Those nerds will have a field day with this stuff, I bet,” she added with a little fondness creeping into her voice. Jyn had a soft spot for a couple of Intel’s analysts, although she hid it well and claimed to never understand what they were talking about.

Cassian pondered that for a moment, and knew that he would regret asking, but curiosity finally drove him to it. “What was it?”

“His porn?” Jyn flashed him a wicked grin (if this was what love felt like, Cassian could understand why people went to such lengths for it). “Ships.”

“He likes…porn on ships?”

“No, I mean just ships,” she clarified. A group of chattering  Verpine swept past them, headed for a nearby food stand, and Jyn stepped closer to him again. Cassian dropped her hand and slipped his arm around her again (twice in one night, it was a record, but then…they were on a date, were they not? This was how normal people walked when they were together, on a date. Her eyes stayed focused on the crowd around them but her shoulders relaxed under his arm, and her mouth curved slightly upwards.) “He had a shit-ton of ads for ships from all over the galaxy.”

“Yachts? Fighters? Luxury shuttles?”

“Old freighters,” she said, and then held up her hands at his expression. “He had almost two exo-flops of data in advertisements for second hand freighters from all over the holonet downloaded in his private server. Mostly from Watto’s List, but I didn’t look too hard at the rest.”

“Second-hand freighters sold on shady holonet sites,” Cassian frowned, wondering if there was some kind of puzzle hidden in that. Maybe Calrissian coded things into the descriptions of the ships? Or he was communicating with the sellers somehow, messages embedded in the images? Or was he looking for something in particular?

The trackers were still lounging by the fountain of glass birds, but considering that Cassian and Jyn were mostly drifting around the plaza in a circle, there was no need for them to do otherwise. The Human appeared to be trimming her nails. The Krish watched the crowd with placid orange eyes. Opposite the trackers, a round-cheeked Human woman in a flowing purple and green robe stood under an arch made of glass flowers, each filled with a different colored smoke. As Cassian watched, she suddenly raised her arms and shouted something cheerful that he couldn’t make out from this distance. In front of her, two Gand males embraced as coils of smoke, one red and one orange, wafted up from the robed Human’s hands and entwined around them. A handful of pedestrians stopped to watch, and an Ortolan on a red ball jett organ played a joyful riff. A wedding, Cassian realized, one of those infamous Bespin City weddings. He wondered if the Gand were drunk, or just prone to making impulsive decisions.

“Ice cream!” A man shouted from a few steps away, and Jyn went tense against him. “Ice cream here!”

“That’s the vendor,” Jyn turned her head towards his neck and spoke quietly, her lips just brushing against his skin. “The one our shadows were talking to earlier.”

“The best ice cream in the galaxy!” the vendor shouted cheerfully, catching Cassian’s eye and beckoning. “You won’t go home disappointed!”

 _Try the ice cream_ , Lando Calrissian told him with a smile, and the hair on the back of Cassian’s neck rose even as a faint spark of hope flickered in his mind. “Come on,” he dipped his head and dropped his voice, his stomach jumping a little in time to her breath on his throat. “Let’s try the best ice cream in the galaxy.”

“Good evening, good evening!” The vendor handed off a small rack of slightly dripping cones to a group of younglings chattering excitedly around the stand. Over his head, orange smoke drifted lazily through the letters of blown glass that proclaimed this was _Willrow’s Wonders, Ice Cream and Sweetery_. Willrow himself was a short, pleasant man with a sharp widow’s peak and a bristling mustache over his bright smile. “There you are, off you lot go, have a lovely night! Enjoy Bespin! Ah, yes, madam, would you care for some ice cream? The best in the whole of the world, I swear!”

“The purple one,” Jyn said flatly, watching the vendor with wary eyes.

“Excellent choice, excellent, double scoop of royal taro, fresh ingredients from Naboo,” Willrow flapped an imperious hand at his young assistant. “And for you, sir, for you – wait,” he held up a finger and made a show of looking Cassian up and down. “For you, I will make a special confection. Sasha!” he bellowed loudly, and the young Human assistant jumped promptly up, holding a large cup full of purple ice cream in one hand. “Sasha, we must use _the machine.”_

He loaded a world of meaning into his last words, and the assistant reacted with the solemnity of an acolyte receiving a proclamation from his High Priest. “Yessir, got her here,” the boy said, reaching to the back of the food stand and whipped a large purple covering from a small white machine. Jyn took the purple ice cream from the counter and squinted at it, then took a hesitant bite. Cassian watched her face, but she didn’t collapse or froth at the mouth or even choke.

“Not bad,” she muttered, and took another bite.

Meanwhile, Willrow had flipped a switch on the machine, which hummed and beeped like a hyperactive droid. Cassian wondered if perhaps it was a droid, some strange home-made model he had never seen before. No, that was truly ridiculous, because with great ceremony, Willrow poured a series of ingredients into the machine, calling out their names in four different languages and singing their praises to the appreciation of the other customers gathered around. “Sweet cut beans from exotic Kadavo,” he cried, “to resolve the mind and open the heart! Shaved dark chocolate straight from Drogheda, said to be the planet that invented chocolate, to strengthen the soul!”

“Is this ice cream or a miracle cure?” Jyn grumbled. Cassian snorted, and kept his eyes on the showboating vendor. At his side, the boy was still handling other orders, but Cassian caught him glancing at them too often to be coincidence.

Willrow tossed a clear box full of something dry and dark that rattled and spun in midair. The man spun underneath, and caught the box neatly as some of the other onlookers applauded. “Cookies, broken, from the Revered Mothers of Seft, to sweeten the bitter memories of life!” And he dumped the contents of the box in. The machine beeped and hummed again, Jyn took a large bite of her purple ice cream and watched the crowd, and Cassian reassured himself that Calrissian had every reason to keep them alive and no reason to hurt them at all. (And even if he did – the man had freed the slaves of Bespin’s mines. That counted for something. It had to.)

“He’s got something in his pocket for us,” Jyn said quietly as Willrow spun the machine one way, then the other, dramatically flourishing a bowl and spoon as he popped open the lid. “He keeps touching it and glancing at the kid.”

Cassian ran his hand up and down her side gently, following the curve of her body and wishing he could tell her how grateful he was that she was there. Not just because she was another set of sharp eyes – because it was _her_. If there were words that could convey that thought, he didn’t know them, but she leaned against his side in response to his touch and he thought maybe she understood anyway.

“And here we are, sir!” Willrow came around the counter of his stand and held out a bowl full of black and white ice cream, a black plastic spoon stuck deep into the side. “Specially made, a new recipe only for you! I call it…” he paused dramatically, his eyes turned up to the heavens (no, not heaven, the traffic control spire), “ _Discretion_ ,” he said grandly, and for some reason, the small crowd cheered.

Jyn tensed as he pulled his arm away from her again, but the people in the crowd (and Calrissian’s trackers) were now watching Cassian, so he reached for the bowl. Willrow’s smile stayed bright and a little vapid, a showman’s grin, but when Cassian wrapped his hand around the bowl, he felt the small catch on the bottom, where Willrow was holding a datachip pressed against the curve of the dish. Deftly, Cassian pinned the datachip with his own fingers and made a point of scooping out a decent-sized bite of the ice cream. Willrow dropped his hand and nodded to him.

It was pretty decent, actually. Not as sweet as he had expected, but still distinctively ice cream. Cassian smiled and nodded, the crowd cheered, and then it’s attention drifted elsewhere. Willrow and his attendant went back to fielding orders, the purple cloth thrown back over the machine, and Jyn tugged Cassian away, towards the other side of the plaza. “Anything good?” she asked, tossing her empty cup in a bin and leading him around another decorative fountain, this one shaped like glass Twi’lek dancing, purple and green smoke spiraling endlessly through their finely-wrought limbs. The fountain partially shielded them from the crowd. Cassian slipped the datachip into her hand and then half turned, stepping in front of her and picking at his ice cream as he listened to her rustle through her pockets behind him.

A moment later, he heard her slicer device beep, and then she let a long breath. “Contracts,” she said, sliding it back into her own pocket and pulling on his arm until he turned to face her. “He gave us a copy of contracts that weren’t in his mainframe files. I’m not sure about the rest, but at least some of them are definitely contracts with Imperial-owned businesses.”

The value of friendship, Cassian thought, and shook his head as he tossed his own mostly-empty cup into the bin. So Calrissian was determined to keep his neutrality, but not entirely unwilling to throw them a bone. _Discretely_.

Cassian’s train of thought derailed as Jyn suddenly wound her arms around his waist and stepped close. “Not a total loss,” she whispered, leaning her forehead against his chest.

Even if the alcohol neutralizer had malfunctioned, Cassian reminded himself, he hadn’t drunk anything alcoholic in almost two hours. There was no conceivable way that he was drunk.

He was just…happy.

“No,” he managed. “Not a loss. Actually,” he cleared his throat and slid his hands up her arms and around her bare shoulders (hard, bony, set firmly against the weight of the world, and relaxing slowly under his palms because she liked his touch, she _liked_ his hands on her). “It’s been a pretty decent night. All things considered.”

“All things considered,” Jyn repeated in a teasing voice, and shook her head slightly. “I wonder if this is what life’s like for normal people.”

“I don’t know,” he confessed, resting his cheek against her hair. “But I imagine there are fewer datachips and government babysitters hovering.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the Krish tracker elbowing her Human partner, and wondered what they thought of this display of public affection. If it were Cassian, he would assume that this was a means of holding a private conversation in the middle of a public space. Perhaps the trackers thought the same of this.

On the other hand, he didn’t really care what they thought, so long as Jyn laughed softly in his arms.

“When the war is over,” Jyn said, and Cassian’s grip tightened unthinkingly. She paused, and he noted that she didn’t say _if we make it_ (or even the more hopeful, more-Jyn-like _when we make it_ ), but he could hear it in the silence still. “When it’s over, we should do this more often,” she said at last.

“Yes,” he agreed. “There will be…a lot we can do, then.”

“Hm,” her head turned, her ear against his chest as she looked towards the trackers over his arm. “Like…going on vacation. Getting free days every week.”

“Watching holostreams that aren’t pirated or stolen from local satellites,” Cassian offered.

Jyn nodded thoughtfully. “Cooking our own food.”

“Grocery shopping.”

“Owning a pet.”

“Owning a home.”

“Paying taxes.”

Cassian pulled back to look at her face. “Paying _taxes?_ ”

Jyn shrugged defensively. “Have you ever done it?”

He blinked. “No.”

“Then we’re going to have to learn from someone, because I haven’t either,” she shook her head and leaned back against him. “From the way Bodhi complained about it, it sounds like a bitch. But…”

“If we want to support the…new system,” Cassian chose his words carefully, giddy with the unexpected success of this night but not so overcome as to speak openly of overthrowing the galactic government in public. “We’ll have to do it.” He smiled at her irritated sigh and ran his hand up her back. “I hear that it’s easier to file jointly, though.”

Jyn shifting slightly to get a better angle on their nearby trackers. Overhead, a burst of bright light and color lit up the night sky over the casinos, followed by another – a firework show. The Stardust Resort put on a show at midnight every night – that must be the start of it. “Thought we had to be married for that,” Jyn said absently, watching the lights.

Cassian froze, his brain catching up with his mouth a beat late. Jyn felt it him stiffen, and slowly raised her head to look him in the eye again. “Yeah,” he said in a voice that sounded detached to his own ears. “We would.”

She looked at him for a long time, the flashing colored lights of the fireworks reflecting off her face and bare shoulders, and glinting in the kyber crystal that had pulled free from her neckline again.  “Cassian,” Jyn whispered so softly that he could barely hear her, then she tilted her head in that challenging way she had, the way she did when she was about to charge into battle or stand up to a disapproving Draven, the way that never failed to charm the hell out of him. In a stern voice, she asked, “Are you saying you would marry me for my tax breaks?”

The laughter bubbled up inside his chest so fast that he barely had time to drag her close and bury his face in her shoulder before it burst out of him. Jyn shivered a little with her own suppressed giggles, her embrace as tight as his. “Sure, but where would we have the ceremony?” Cassian teased when he caught his breath again.

“Oh, a big one on Coruscant,” she shot back immediately. “All the glamorous people will be there.”

“You’d have to wear a glamorous dress, then.”

“Hm. And we’d have to get fancy expensive food like at that restaurant.”

“All the glamorous weddings have at least one cheese bantha,” Cassian nodded solemnly, though his head felt light and his heart was beating far too rapidly again. He was definitely not drunk, but this felt suspiciously like it.

Jyn made an irritated grumbling noise in her throat, a sound that Cassian thought was kind of cute (like a pissed off badger just before it ripped someone’s face off) but was smart enough to never mention it. “Never mind. Better to just elope somewhere we could just wear trousers.”

“And eat whatever we want.”

“And,” Jyn poked his side, right in the spot that always made him twitch. Cassian jerked and glared at her mockingly. “We could file our taxes jointly.”

A volley of bright red and white fireworks lit up the sky in a massive booming line, and the crowd in the plaza hooted and cheered around them. Jyn’s kyber seemed to glimmer in the light, as if a small flame had come alive inside it. Cassian traced a carefully hand down the edge of the crystal, until his fingertip slid off the stone and brushed light as a feather against her skin. Jyn swallowed, her eyes wide in the last fading flashes of the fireworks, and Cassian, emboldened, traced his finger along her collarbone next. “I would,” he told her, all teasing aside and his heart racing, “marry you, Jyn. I would like that, if you – if it was - if that was ever something that you wanted.”

Jyn rose up on her toes and pressed her lips against his ear. “Well you’re in luck,” she said, her voice running down his spine and making his head spin slightly with the gentleness and the trust in it. “Because I do.”

The crackling of the fireworks faded, and the crowd began to shuffle and flow around them again, back towards the casinos and the hotels. Behind him, a melodious voice suddenly called, “one hour left, friends! One hour, and then our delightful musical friend must return to his tour and the House of Hopeful Futures must close for the evening. One hour!”

It was the woman in the flowing purple robes, her arms spread wide as she smiled at the crowd. The Ontoran at the organ behind her bobbed his head in time to the cheerful tune he was now playing. Cassian glanced from the woman to Jyn, who turned to meet his eyes at the same time.

He would never be able to explain it, later, the strange sense of that moment. Jyn looked up at him and tilted her head, and Cassian laughed and took her hand, pulling her a step back. If she had resisted at all, he would have understood, he would have stopped, he would have –

But she didn’t resist, stepping forward with him and laughing, too, a soft, huffing sound because she had been taught all her life to never laugh out loud, never make noise that might draw the attention of something bigger, someone crueler. He stepped again, and she moved with him, and then to his surprise, she darted past him and turned the tables, now pulling him the last few steps with a light in her eyes that both dared and invited him to follow.

“Hello, my friends,” the woman in the robes greeted them with a sweet smile. “Having a lovely night?”

“Yes,” Jyn said shortly, shot him one last look (Cassian nodded, his voice locked up inside his throat and his chest aching with the thunder of his heart, and if this was happiness, no wonder people fought so hard to find it), and then she handed the woman another of her stolen gilded credit chits and said, “About to be better.”

The woman beamed, tucked the chit into her voluminous sleeve with an astonishing speed, and then called for her assistant with a cheerful flourish, leading them both nearer to the musician and the arch of blown glass flowers. “Here, loves, compliments of the House of Hopeful Futures,” she handed Jyn a small blown glass star. Deep blue smoke shifted inside the glass as Jyn flipped it in her hand, studying it for any tracking devices or bugs. When Jyn was satisfied it was safe, she gave the woman – minister – a faint smile and folded her hand in Cassian’s, the glass star pressed tight between their palms.

Cassian had excellent recall; it was part of his training, a tool of some significance in his line of work, and were he the sort to track such things, would have been a point of pride with him, too. He could recall details of a conversation he had overheard months prior in order to make obscure connections. If pressed, he could describe an event involving multiple people down to the color of their eyes (where applicable).

Whatever the minister said that night -  that night when he stood with Jyn’s hand in his, the silent, endless ballet of the ships floating in and out of the spaceport behind her, the crowd’s chatter rising and falling like ocean waves behind him – whatever the minister said, it flowed over and around Cassian, as insubstantial and impermanent as the breeze. At one point, she paused significantly, and Jyn smirked and waved a demanding hand at two figures lurking around a nearby fountain. A surprised looking Human and a laughing Krish shuffled forward and signed the witness lines of the marriage certificate on the minister’s datapad, and then the robed woman handed the pad to Cassian. He had to let go of Jyn’s hand to take it and the stylus, and when he paused and looked up at her, she shrugged. “If you want to,” Jyn told him, raising her chin and clearly ready to back off and pretend this hadn’t happened if he gave her any sign of discomfort.

To his left, the clouds of Bespin stretched out to the far curving horizon, and to his right, the city bellowed and beckoned. In front of him, Jyn Erso stood with her hands in loose fists at her side and her head held high, and in his hands he held a promise to stand with her for all the days of his life.

Cassian signed the datapad and handed it to her, and forced himself to breathe.

Jyn took the pad and the stylus and signed it so fast that he barely registered it. She handed the datapad back to the minister and reached for Cassian’s hand again (because she wanted to touch him, because she _loved_ him) and the minister shouted whatever happy thing she had yelled before. Cassian couldn’t hear it any clearer this time than when he had been halfway across the plaza, and it didn’t matter anyway because Jyn grabbed his lapel with one hand and yanked him down, pressing a hard, unrepentant kiss to his mouth.

The minister stretched out her hands and two coils of smoke, one dark green, the other blue-grey, curled up from her wide sleeves and twined around Cassian and Jyn. Nearby, the two trackers clapped, and the Krish whistled appreciatively. The musician played something that Cassian couldn’t identify but sounded vaguely like an Alderaanian jig.

Jyn’s lips were warm and chapped against his, her breath soft against his cheek, and whatever else happened in his life, Cassian Andor would remember _this_.

Jyn pulled back, the colored smoke dissipated around them, and Cassian took a deep breath.

“Come on,” he said, tugging gently on her hand. “Let’s go home.”

 

\--

 

The hatch sealed behind them with a hiss, and Jyn rolled her shoulders and dropped her duffel without ceremony. “You’re late,” she called down the narrow passageway to the cockpit.

“Customs in this place is brutal,” Bodhi shouted back. “I had a Naboo peach in my lunch box and they panicked and insisted on running a full bio scan. You’re lucky I made it here at all. Force forbid I had brought a _banana -_ someone might have fainted."

Jyn threw a glance over her shoulder at Cassian (her covered shoulder, the dress was rolled up and packed tight at the bottom of Jyn’s duffel and she was dressed again in her workman’s clothes and jacket). “Bodhi doesn’t like Bespin customs,” she informed him solemnly.

“I gathered,” Cassian answered.

“Although I have to admire a city that has slot machines in the customs office,” Bodhi said thoughtfully as his friends slid into the cockpit behind him and strapped into the passenger seats. “Shows a real dedication to the noble art of, you know, gambling.”

“You win anything?” Jyn asked, kicking her boots up on the console between her seat and Cassian's.

“I did,” Bodhi told her, peering at them around the side of his pilot chair. “Twenty credits. I’m a, a winner, thanks.”

“Congratulations,” Cassian glared pointedly at Jyn’s boots until she rolled her eyes and dropped them to the deck. “Did you lose anything?”

Bodhi’s grin turned sheepish. “Twenty five credits.”

“Congratulations,” Cassian repeated in the same tone.

“Yes, well, anyway, did you two have a nice time?” Bodhi shifted the engines into gear and lifted the ship gently off the landing pad.

Jyn caught Cassian’s eye, a small smile tugging at her mouth. “I enjoyed it,” Cassian replied dryly, running his thumb over the small glass star in his jacket pocket.

Bodhi snorted. “I’m sure you had a wild time,” he joked in a tone that said he didn’t. “It was all wild parties and champagne, right?”

“No comment,” Jyn replied, amused.

“No, no, you’re right, don’t tell me,” their pilot shook his head and guided the ship up and out of the atmosphere, the pink-tinted clouds of Bespin giving away to the endless inky blackness of space. “What happens in Bespin stays in Bespin.” He paused thoughtfully, his hand on the hyperspace throttle. “Unless you got STDs or married,” he added with a laugh. “ _That_  stays in _you_.”

Cassian leaned back in his chair. “As it happens,” he said blandly as the stars outside blurred and stretched into infinity, “we did not get STDs.”

At his side, Jyn laughed and reached for his hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “The Plume” is just Bespin’s version of the Vegas Strip. I haven't lived there in a few years, but this is more or less how I recall it (minus the long drop into an ocean of clouds, of course). Except instead of colored lights I went with colored smoke, and the elaborate street shows you see all over the place on The Strip in front of the big hotels and casinos is instead the smoke painters and glass blowers doing performative creating. I would say "and no aliens in Vegas," but honestly, there are so many people from so many walks of life that to some, it might well feel as strange as walking down a street full of Mikkian and Krish and what have you. 
> 
> And, like Vegas, Bespin has walk-in weddings, routine fireworks shows, and the Best Ice Cream In The Galaxy.
> 
> Yes, the [Most Important Ice Cream Machine In The Galaxy](http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Willrow_Hood) makes an appearance, because I love [Star Wars fandom ](https://www.dailydot.com/parsec/running-of-the-hoods-star-wars-celebration/) sometimes, I really, really do. (Yes, I know the backstory behind the scene and the character in the movie. I’m just playing with it here, for this light-hearted story).
> 
> All the locations in this story are based on interesting cloud phenomena. No, really, go look up Morning Glory clouds. (Well, all the locations in this story with one exception: the [Stardust hotel and casino](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stardust_Resort_and_Casino) was a real place in Vegas, one of my favorite places to go as a kid because they had really pretty space-themed child friendly shows, and look, the name was too perfect not to use here).
> 
> I went less with the more common "drunk and sloppy in lust" Vegas wedding and more with the "impulsive and giddy in love" scenario, because it felt like a better fit.
> 
> The chapter titles are, I imagine, how Cassian would title the sections of his report of this trip.


End file.
